Bush-Cheney Interview on 9/11 Is Set

Published: April 21, 2004

WASHINGTON, April 20—
President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney will appear together on April 29 before the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, an official said Tuesday.

The closed-door questioning is likely to focus on what steps the administration took in summer 2001 to guard against a terrorist attack in the face of warnings from intelligence sources.

The issue has proved increasingly troublesome for the White House in the last two weeks, as top administration officials appearing before the commission faced aggressive questioning about whether they took the threat seriously enough.

Officials at the White House and the panel declined on Tuesday to discuss details of the scheduled joint interview.

Lee H. Hamilton, the ranking Democrat on the panel, confirmed that a date had been set but declined to say what it was. Another official who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed it would be April 29.